RSS feeds for "Try this" / Offtopic etc?

whoops · 2016-08-24 13:29:53

Hi!

Would it be possible (+easy enough?) to enable RSS feeds for threads in the nonpublic forums somehow? I'm aware why the decision was made to make them invisible to search engines and non registered users - it makes sense to restrict the "public face" of the site to things that are actually directly related to archlinux....

But since this isn't a critical / security issue - shouldn't it be possible to allow public access to them without making them really "visible"? As far as I can tell there are no links to the feeds anywhere for nonusers / search engine to follow... and if that's not enough, there's always robots.txt or - if that, still - isn't enough, the access could be restricted to the user agents of known private feed aggregators ( tinyrss etc ).

lahwaacz · 2016-08-24 13:47:26

There are RSS feeds for the non-public forums, e.g. this for Off-Topic. It's just not publicly accessible, so you'll need an RSS reader which can log-in like a browser. Not sure if such a thing exists.

WorMzy · 2016-08-24 13:48:25

There are rss feeds, you just need to be signed in to view them. e.g.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/extern.php?ac … &type=atom

I don't use rss readers (outside of palemoon's built-in rss handler), so I'm unsure whether this will be useful to you. If your rss reader supports cookies, then it can presumably handle these 'hidden' rss feeds.

EDIT: snaked.

Last edited by WorMzy (2016-08-24 13:48:40)

whoops · 2016-08-24 14:22:51

Yes, the problem is, many rss readers / aggregators do not support logins / cookies. In fact, if there are any at all, I haven't found a good one.

Requiring authentication for RSS feeds isn't such a common thing... and the preferred way to authenticate is HTTP auth. At least that seems to be what the devs of rss applications usually say when they close feature requests for cookie / login support (Example: https://tt-rss.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=623)... I came across several ones that "won't implement" while I was looking for alternatives.

( There isn't currently any way to login with HTTP auth here for RSS, right? Because if there is already, I'm just doing it wrong )

lahwaacz · 2016-08-24 14:40:59

There is no way HTTP auth (either basic or digest) could possibly be preferred.

As for these forums, there is most likely nothing we could do unless it's contributed to FluxBB upstream. Generally speaking, I'd say it's more sensible and easier to patch your favourite RSS client than devise obscure ways to slightly loosen the protection of the feeds.

whoops · 2016-08-24 15:06:54

Ok, thanks!

Guess I better leave it... having regular "random linux trivia / news / jokes" in between my news would have been kind of nice, but not "nice" enough to warrant making the mess I'd have to make to get it working with my setup ( Setting up a small bash script that downloads the feeds + mini webserver that re-offers them as an interface between my tiny-rss provider and the site would probably be the only viable option for me... not hard to do, but... my stuff is messy enough already -.-" ).

Last edited by whoops (2016-08-24 15:07:18)

R00KIE · 2016-08-24 16:40:39

The only feed I subscribe to that requires login is handled by logging in in the account with a browser, and then going to the profile to "request" a user specific url that you can use to get the feeds, but that is a single feed, not like what you want, a separate feed for each section of the forum.

whoops · 2016-08-26 11:09:26

Oh, right! I've got one of those "semi-secret insecure url" type of feeds too...

I wonder... would it be OK to make an extra forum account that's only used to access & offer the rss feeds?

A short dirty php + bash + htaccess script should be enough to offer up all the feeds based on "secret insecure urls"...

Arch Linux

#1 2016-08-24 13:29:53

RSS feeds for "Try this" / Offtopic etc?

#2 2016-08-24 13:47:26

Re: RSS feeds for "Try this" / Offtopic etc?

#3 2016-08-24 13:48:25

Re: RSS feeds for "Try this" / Offtopic etc?

#4 2016-08-24 14:22:51

Re: RSS feeds for "Try this" / Offtopic etc?

#5 2016-08-24 14:40:59

Re: RSS feeds for "Try this" / Offtopic etc?

#6 2016-08-24 15:06:54

Re: RSS feeds for "Try this" / Offtopic etc?

#7 2016-08-24 16:40:39

Re: RSS feeds for "Try this" / Offtopic etc?

#8 2016-08-26 11:09:26

Re: RSS feeds for "Try this" / Offtopic etc?

Board footer